Mystics in Bali is a 1981 Indonesian horror film directed by H. Tjut Djalil and based on the novel “Leák Ngakak” by Putra Mada. The original Indonesian title is “Mystik” or “Leyak”, but the film is also known as “Leák” in some territories and “Balinese Mystic” in Australia.

Researching a book that takes her to Bali and the black magic cult of Leák, Cathy meets an evil witch which promises to train her in the dark arts. Tricked, Cathy is turned into a Penanggalan; a flying vampire with internal organs hanging from her neck. It is now up to the local holy men who are then enforced to do battle with the forces of evil…

The film revolves around the Balinese mythology of the leyak (penanggalan) and was originally banned in Indonesia. Nevertheless, pirated copies found their way onto VHS first locally and then internationally.

The film eventually gained cult status amongst horror fans worldwide; particularly after the proliferation of the internet where countless reviews of it appeared prior to any DVD release.

IT initially received a DVD release on cult video label Mondo Macabro in 2003 but that has since sold out and been deleted. Mondo Macabro released a new edition in 2007 that featured a new HD transfer from the original negative.

Wikipedia | IMDb | Amazon.com

“Though it isn’t particularly violent, Mystics in Bali is rife with enough grotesque visuals to make the most jaded viewers shake their heads in disbelief. The sight of Cathy’s head trying to pluck out toothpicks from its body’s neck stump would be enough, but the multiple pig transformations really push the film into pure surrealist territory.” Nathanial Thompson, Mondo Digital

“Guys you have got to see this movie.  The very first line that I wrote down in the notes I took while watching this movie is “Holy freaking shit” and that line itself best sums up Mystics in Bali.” Guy Shatzer, Gutmunchers

“There are weird movies, and then there is Mystics in Bali: the film against which other weird movies are measured.  While some weird movies are 90-minute freakouts devoid of any comprehensible plot, and other weird movies contain startling moments interspersed with long, boring narrative sequences, Mystics in Bali strikes the proper balance between craziness and an interesting (albeit awkwardly told) story.” Jeff, Cinema Strikes Back

Buy Mystics in Bali on DVD via Amazon.com

Macabre, international title for Rumah Dara (Indonesian title), is a 2009 Indonesian horror-slasher film directed by Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto (The Mo Brothers) and starring Julie Estelle and Shareefa Daanish. The film is based on the short film Dara.

According to the official Twitter page for Rumah Dara, the film is banned in Malaysia because of excessive violence. The movie is the first Indonesian film to be banned there.

A group of people are travelling by car to the airport, when along the road, they meet a beautiful woman named Maya who says she has been robbed and needs a ride home.The story unfolds as the group of travelers attempts to escape from a house which is owned by a mysterious lady named Dara and her family. Later it is revealed that the family are killers and cannibals attempting to gain immortality. The group is repeatedly attacked with a vast array of weapons…

Buy Macabre (2009) on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

“If you want gore, blood and random graphic violence you’ve come to the right place. Macabre is a very bloody movie without being Schnaas-boring or cutting away to fast like most American “graphic” horror movies. This is French-style stuff, and if you’ve seen Inside, Martyrs, Frontier(s) etc you know what I mean.” Fred Anderson, Ninja Dixon

“The kills are satisfying, but towards the end the violence goes over the edge to a point of no return losing the reliability of the familiar but believable structure established beforehand. By the end a film filled with satisfying clichés gets overtaken by them and ultimately uses them as a crutch rather than a tried-and-true generic trope. Macabre is reliable genre fun, but I wish it had the balls to venture just a few steps beyond the formula.” Richard Hariday, Rich on Film

Related : Inside | Martyrs | Frontier(s)

Pengabdi Setan (Satan’s Slave) is a 1980 Indonesian horror film directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra (who also made a number of supernatural martial arts movies).

Pengabdi Setan contains some ethereal nightmare scenes and an overt synth score that elevates it beyond many of the meretricious Asian supernatural movies of its era. Indonesian films were always more delirious than their Hong Kong counterparts and less simplistically sadean than Japanese movies. Aside from a brief and suitably tacky disco scene, there are  scenes of Jean Rollin-like cinematic poetry, which, combined with later imagery typical of the bluntness of Far East cinema, makes Pengabdi Setan a whole lot more interesting. It’s something of a mess but the overall result is fascinating, if flawed by the usual conceits of exploitation cinema. A big-haired witch and some odd-looking zombies ensure that the finale is daft yet entertaining.

Plus, a glorious moment for seasoned global horror fans is the discovery of a ‘forbidden’ copy of House of Hammer magazine, a youthful temptation that was often forbidden by authority figures.

The 1970s saw old taboos falling away in the cinema, and few horror film sub-genres benefited from the relaxation in censorship more than the cannibal film. In fact, this is a genre that scarcely existed prior to the Seventies. Sure, horror films had long hinted at cannibalism as a plot device – movies like Doctor X (1932) and others portrayed it as an element of psychosis without ever being overly explicit, and this would continue into the 1970s with films such as Cannibal Girls Frightmare and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – but no one had really explored the idea explicitly. Some things were just too tasteless, and cannibalism was something of a no-no with assorted censor boards around the world.

Yet the idea that remote tribes in the Amazon or on islands like Papua New Guinea were still practising cannibalism was a common one at the time, thanks to a conflation of suspicion, colonialist ideas, misunderstanding of tribal rituals (such as head hunting / shrinking) and old-fashioned racism. And, if we are to be fair, these beliefs were not entirely without validity, as some cultures still did practice cannibalism, albeit not as determinedly as was often made out. Certainly, the subject was exploited – 1956 roadshow movie Cannibal Island promised much in its sensationalist promotional art, even if the film itself was Gaw the Killer, an anthropological documentary from the 1931, re-edited and re-dubbed, that was notably lacking in anthropophagy, despite the best efforts of the narrator to suggest otherwise.

Buy Cannibal Island on DVD from Amazon.com

Elsewhere, cartoons and comic books perpetuated the idea that any great white hunter who was captured by natives was bound to end up in a cooking pot, and Tarzan movies hinted that he bones the natives wore as decoration were not all from animals. 1954′s Cannibal Attack saw Johnny Weissmuller playing Johnny Weissmuller, fighting off enemy agents in a cannibal-filled jungle.

Hell Night director Tom De Simone’s terrible movie Terror in the Jungle (1968) had a small boy captured by a cannibal tribe and only saved by his ‘glowing’ blonde hair. Worship of blonde white people would be a theme in later, trashier cannibal movies too). Even the children’s big game hunting Adventure novel series by Willard Price had a Cannibal Adventure entry. But notably, none of these early efforts actually went the extra mile – the natives in these films may have been cannibals, but we had to take the filmmakers and writers word for that – no cannibalism actually took place on screen.

In the 1960s, the Mondo documentary would also take an interest in bizarre tribal rituals, and these mostly Italian films would subsequently come to inform the style of the cannibal films that emerged later. Certainly, later shockumentaries such as Savage Man, Savage Beast, This Violent World and Shocking Africa were closely related to contemporary films like Man from Deep River and Last Cannibal World, with their lurid mix of anthropological studies and sensationalism.

One such mondo movie was the 1974 Italian/Japanese Nuova Guinea, l’isola dei cannibali. Tribal scenes from this production – which also includes footage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip on a Royal visit to the island (!) – were inserted into the zombie film Hell of the Living Dead (1981) to add verisimilitude. It was  later opportunistically released on DVD in the USA as The Real Cannibal Holocaust.

Buy The Real Cannibal Holocaust on DVD from Amazon.com

The cannibal film as we know it now began in 1972, with Il paese del sesso selvaggio, also known as Deep River Savages, The Man from Deep River and Sacrifice!  It was directed by Umberto Lenzi, who would spend the next decade playing catch-up in a genre he pretty much invented with scriptwriters Francesco Barilli and Massimo D’Avak. This film essentially set many of the templates for the genre – graphic violence, extensive nudity, real animal slaughter and the culture clash between ‘civilised’ Westerners and ‘primitive’ tribes.

The film is, essentially, a rip-off of American western A Man Called Horse, with Italian exploitation icon Ivan Rassimov as a British photographer who finds himself stranded in the jungles of Thailand and captured by a native tribe. Eventually, after undergoing assorted humiliations and initiation rituals, he is accepted within the community, who are at war with a fierce, more primitive cannibal tribe.

Co-starring Mei Mei Lai (who would become one of the sub-genre’s stock players), the film is set up more as an adventure story than a horror film, but the look and feel of the story would subsequently inform other cannibal movies, and the scene where the cannibal tribe kill and eat a native certainly sets the scene for what is to come.

Buy The Man from Deep River + Warlock Moon + Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat on DVD from Amazon.com

Made in 1976, Ruggero Deodato’s Ultimo mondo cannibale (Last Cannibal World; Cannibal; Jungle Holocaust) also had the feel of an old-school jungle adventure, though Deodato expanded on what Lenzi had started – this tale of an explorer (played by Massimo Foschi) who is captured by a cannibal tribe features a remarkable amount of nudity (Foschi is kept naked in a cage for much of the film, teased and tormented by the tribe) and sex – including an animalistic sex scene between Foschi and Mei Mei Lai (Rassimov also co-stars). It also featured more graphic gore and real animal killing – the latter would become the achilles heel of the genre, something that even its admirers would find hard to defend. Even if the slaughtered animals were eaten by the filmmakers, showing such scenes for entertainment still left a bad taste with many, and over and above the sex and violence, would be the major cause of censorship for these films.

The Last Cannibal World proved to be a popular hit around the world (it even played UK cinemas after BBFC cuts) and sparked a mini-boom in cannibal film production. In 1977, Joe D’Amato continued his bizarre mutation of the Black Emanuelle series – which, under his guidance, had evolved from soft porn travelogue to featuring white slavery, rape, snuff movies, hardcore sex and even bestiality – with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (aka Trap Them and Kill Them), a strange and uniquely 1970s mixture of of softcore sex and hardcore gore, as Laura Gemser goes in search of a lost cannibal tribe. Quite what audiences expecting sexy thrills thought when they were confronted with graphic castration scenes is anyone’s guess, but the film played successfully across Europe and America, albeit often in a cut form.

D’Amato returned to the genre in 1978 with Papaya – Love Goddess of the Cannibals, with Sirpa Lane which, despite its title features no cannibals, in a film that again mixed gore and softcore yet still managed to be rather dull.

Also in 1978, we had the only cannibal film with a big name cast. Mountain of the Cannibal God (aka Slave of the Cannibal God; Prisoner of the Cannibal God) saw former Bond girl Ursula Andress stripped and fondled by a cannibal tribe as she and Stacey Keach search for her missing husband. The starry cast didn’t mean that director Sergio Martino wasn’t going to include some particularly unnecessary animal cruelty and a bizarre (faked) scene of a man fucking a pig though, as well as graphic gore. At heart an old fashioned jungle adventure spiced up with 1970s sex ‘n’ violence, the most remarkable part of the film is how Martino managed to persuade Andress to appear completely naked. Perhaps she just wanted to show off how good her body was 16 years after Dr No!

Buy The Mountain of the Cannibal God on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

That same year saw an Indonesian entry in the genre with Primitives, also known as Savage Terror. This was essentially a rehash of The Last Cannibal World, but with less gore and no nudity, which resulted in a rather plodding jungle drama. This one is definitely for genre completists only, and proved to be a major disappointment when released on VHS to a cannibal-hungry public by Go Video in the UK as a follow-up to Cannibal Holocaust.

Ahh yes, Cannibal Holocaust. The Citizen Kane of cannibal movies, and the genre’s only undisputed masterpiece, the film would also become the most notorious film in the genre, shocking audiences and censors alike and even now seen as being about as extreme as cinema can go.

The film began life as just another cannibal film, Deodato hired to make something to follow up The Last Cannibal World. But with the relative freedom granted to him (all his backers wanted was a gory cannibal film), he came up with a movie that critiqued the sensationalism of the Mondo movie makers and the audience’s lust for blood, with his tale of an exploitative documentary crew who set out to film cannibal tribes but through their own arrogance and cruelty bring about their own demise.

Deodato’s film effectively invents the Found Footage style of filmmaking, his fake documentary approach being so effective that he found himself facing a trial, accused of actually murdering his actors! Given that the film mixes real animal killing with worryingly effective scenes of violence, all shot in shaky, hand-held style, it’s perhaps no surprise that people thought it was real – even into the 1990s, the film was reported as being a ‘snuff movie’ by the British press.

But there is more going on here than mere sensationalism and sadism – Deodato’s film fizzes with a righteous anger and passion, and makes absolutely no concession to moral restraint. There’s a level of intensity here that is beyond fiction – certainly, the story of the film’s production and reception would make for a remarkable movie in its own right. Almost imprisoned and seeing his film banned in Italy and elsewhere (in Britain, it was one of the first video nasties), Deodato was suitably chastened, and never made anything like it again.

Buy Cannibal Holocaust on DVD from Amazon.com

But despite the bans, the legal issues and the outrage, Cannibal Holocaust was enough of a sensation to spawn imitators. Umberto Lenzi returned to the genre he’s more or less invented in 1980 with Eaten Alive (Magiati Vivi; The Emerald Jungle; Doomed to Die), which managed to mix cannibal tribes, nudity and gore with a story that exploits the recent Guyana massacre led by Jim Jones. This tale of a fanatical religious cult leader had an cannibal movie all-star cast – Ivan Rassimov, Mei Mei Lai and Robert Kerman (aka porn star R. Bolla) who had starred in Cannibal Holocaust were joined by Janet Agren and Mel Ferrer in what is a textbook example of a cheap knock-off. Not only does the film cash in on earlier movies and recent news events, it actually ‘cannibalises’ whole scenes from other films, Lenzi’s own Man from Deep River amongst them. Yet despite this, it’s fairly entertaining stuff.

Buy Eaten Alive on DVD from Amazon.com

Lenzi followed this with Cannibal Ferox (aka Make Them Die Slowly; Let Them Die Slowly), a more blatant imitation of Cannibal Holocaust. Kerman again makes an appearance (albeit a brief one), while Italian cult icon John Morghen (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) headlines a fairly ham fisted tale of an anthropology student who sets out to prove that cannibalism is a myth, only to find she’s very, very wrong. Directed with indifference by Lenzi (who clearly had no interest in theses films beyond a pay check), the film features more gratuitous animal killing and some remarkably sadistic scenes (two castrations and a woman hung with hooks through her breasts), which invariably ensured that the film would be “banned in 31 countries”.

Buy Cannibal Ferox on DVD from Amazon.com

1980 also brought us Zombie Holocaust (aka Doctor Butcher M.D.) in which Marino Girolami opportunistically livened up his Zombie Flesh Eaters imitation by adding a mad doctor, cannibals and nudity to the mix, and Cannibal Apocalypse, where Vietnam vets John Saxon and John Morghen were driven to cannibalism in Vietnam and then go on the rampage in the USA.

Jess Franco entered the genre in 1980 with Cannibals (aka The White Cannibal Queen) and Devil Hunter (aka Man Hunter), but the crudity of the cannibal movie was unsuited to a director more at home with surreal, erotic gothic fantasies. Cannibals was the more interesting of the two – Franco’s intense close-ups and slow motion during the cannibalism scenes add a bizarre, almost dream-like edge to the proceedings, in a tale that mixes a one-armed Al Cliver and a naked Sabrina Siani as the blonde goddess worshipped by the ‘cannibal tribe’. Devil Hunter is a ridiculous mishmash with a kidnapped movie star, a bug-eyed, big-dicked monster and cannibals. Franco himself was dismissive of both films, and they are recommended only for the completist.

Cannibals

Similar to the Franco films (coming from the same producers and featuring footage from Cannibals) is the tedious Cannibal Terror, a French effort that sees a bunch of kidnappers hanging out in a cannibal-infested jungle. It’s pretty hard work to sit through even for the most ardent admirer of Eurotrash. Meanwhile, cannibalistic monks cropped up in the 1981 US movie Raw Force (later retitled) Kung Fu Cannibals but they were only one of the smorgasbord element in this exploitation trash and being a ‘religious order’ rather than a tribe merit just a brief mention here.

After this flurry of activity, the genre began to fizzle out, exploitation filmmakers moving on to the next big thing (i.e. knock offs of Conan and Mad Max). It wasn’t until 1985 that we saw a revival of the jungle cannibal film with Amazonia (aka White Slave), directed by Mario Gariazzo. A strange mix of revenge drama and cannibal film, the movie is a gender-reversal of Man from Deep River, with Elvire Audray as Catherine Miles, brought up by a cannibal tribe after her parents are murdered in the Amazon. Despite some gore and nudity, it’s a rather plodding affair. It should not be confused with Ruggero Deodato’s Cut and Run, also sometimes called Amazonia but which – despite the setting and some gruesome moments – was not a return to the cannibal genre for the director.

More fun was Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (aka Naked and Savage), a cheerfully trashy affair directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini, with the survivors of a plane crash – including nubile young models and Indiana Jones like palaeontologist Michael Sopkiw battling slave traders, nature and cannibal tribes (but not dinosaurs) in the Amazon. Gratuitous nudity, splashy gore, bad acting and a ludicrous series of events ensure that this one is a lot of fun.

Natura Contro, retitled Cannibal Holocaust II but unconnected to the earlier film, is possibly the most obscure of the films in the sub-genre. Made in 1988, it is the final film by Antonio Climati, best known for his uncompromising Mondo movies of the 1970s. It’s surprising then that this is fairly tame stuff by cannibal movie standards, telling the story of a group of people who head to the Amazon to find a missing professor. By 1988, both the Italian exploitation film and the cannibal genre were breathing their last, and the excesses of a decade earlier were no longer commercially viable – the mainstream audience for such films had dwindled considerably, while censorship had tightened up.

Natura Contro

It would be another fifteen years before we saw the return of the jungle holocaust film, and then it was hardly worth it. Bruno Mattei, a prolific hack since the 1970s, had someone managed to keep making films, and in 2003 knocked out a pair of ultra-low budget, almost unwatchably bad cannibal films. In the Land of the Cannibals (aka Cannibal Ferox 3) and Cannibal World (aka Cannibal Holocaust 2) were slow, clumsy and boring attempts to cash in on the cult reputation of Mattei (a couple of years later, he’d make two similarly dismal zombie films) and the reputation of the earlier cannibal movies (needless to say, these are not official sequels to either Holocaust or Ferox). These two films seemed to be the final nail in the genre’s coffin.

But with the reputation of Cannibal Holocaust continuing to increase, and a general return to ‘hard core horror’ in the new century with films like Saw and Hostel, the cannibal film has seen a slight revival. But although Deodato has talked about making a sequel to Cannibal Holocaust, the new films have been American productions, even though they are informed by the Italian films of the past.

Jonathan Hensleigh’s Welcome to the Jungle , made in 2007, channels Holocaust with its found footage format as a group of remarkably annoying treasure hunters head to New Guinea in search of the missing Michael Rockerfeller, hoping to cash in on his discovery. Instead, their bickering attracts the attention of local cannibal tribes, who stalk and slaughter them. There;s an interesting idea at play here, but the characters are all so utterly loathsome that you’ll struggle to make it to the point where they start getting killed.

The latest attempt to revive the genre comes from Eli Roth, who’s Green Inferno is about to be released. The film takes its title from Cannibal Holocaust (one of Roth’s favourite films) and the plot – student activists travel to the Amazon to protect a tribe but find themselves captured by cannibals – sounds like a copy of Cannibal Ferox. Having received positive reviews at festivals, we hope the film is able to capture the spirit of the original movies, if not their frenzied style.

Certainly, we are unlikely to see anyone making a film quite like Cannibal Holocaust again – there are laws in place to stop it, if nothing else. But we can now look back at this most controversial of horror sub-genres and see that they represent a time when cinema was without restraint. As such, they are more than simply films, they are historical time capsules, and for those with strong stomachs, well worth investigating.

Article by David Flint

Related: Cannibal Holocaust | Devil Hunter | The Man from Deep River | The Mountain of the Cannibal God

Offline reading:

Buy Eaten Alive! Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

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The Forbidden Door (Indonesian: Pintu Terlarang) is a 2009 Indonesian horror film, directed by Joko Anwar, and starring Fachri Albar, Marsha Timothy, Ario Bayu and Otto Djauhari. It is based on the novel Pintu Terlarang, written by Sekar Ayu Asmara.

Plot teaser:

The life of a successful sculptor is turned upside down when he begins receiving mysterious messages from someone who asks for his help…

Reviews:

“The gore freak in me was pleased at the final part of the movie where family and friends are seated at dinner and our lead character exacts some much needed revenge. The whole scene is set to some Christmas music and it’s a funny balance of pretty gruesome violence and happy songs playing in the background. Overall a very enjoyable flick with plenty of really twisted ideas and shots in it.” The Film Reel

“It’s been a long time since a film has come along that’s been so playfully weird and yet so skillfully constructed. For fans of David Lynch and even Alejandro Jodorowsky (comparisons cannot help but be made) this is one for you, a twisted and gleefully bizarre tail. It’s a mystery full of unexpected turns that confound expectations and keep one glued to the screen for the full two-hour running time.” Quiet Earth

“The Forbidden Door is a movie that truly deserves multiple viewings to be better appreciated and understood. It is far from being perfect (some plot points drag a bit too long and the editing has a few problems as well) but I, for one, cant wait to see what’s next for Joko Anwar.” Daily Dose of Horror

 Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

Takut: Faces of Fear is a 2008 Indonesian anthology horror film with episodes directed by Rako Prijanto, Riri Riza, Ray Nayoan, Robby Ertanto, Radithya Sidharta, and The Mo Brothers (Macabre, an expanded version of their short Dara which is included here). It stars Fauzi Baadila, Eva Celia Latjuba, Shareefa Daanish and Mike Muliadro.

Brian Yuzna was one of the producers, having set up a production company in Jakarta, Indonesia called Komodo Films.

Plot teasers:

Show Unit: A man investigates an intruder in his house only to become the victim of a deadly game of extortion and murder.

Titisan Naya: During her family’s traditional sacred dagger cleansing-ritual a skeptical teenager discovers that her ancestors are not just a faded memory.

Peeper: A peeping tom who finds his comeuppance in the backstage of a Wayang Orang dance theatre.

The List: A scorned woman engages a ‘dukun’ to use black magic to satisfy her appitites for revenge, in a short that features special effects by Orloando Bassi and Aghi Narottama’s music that is an homage to Indonesian 1980’s exploitation cinema.

The Rescue: A fast-paced chase through an apocalyptic Jakarta inhabited with cannibalistic ‘sub-humans’. A patrol of mobile brigadier Gegana Special Forces must lead civilian survivors to safety before they are all infected.

Dara: One woman. Three men. Let the feast begin… A story about haute cuisine and the lengths which a beautiful chef will go to in order to satisfy her customers.

Reviews:

“Normally I cringe at directors with cheesy DJ nicknames, but here “The Mo Brothers” (Kimo Stamboel and Timothy Tjahjanto) pull off one of the best short films I’ve seen in ages, titled Dara. Daanish completely steals this film with a wonderfully creepy china-doll performance that puts similar efforts to shame. This 26 minute short has been playing festivals, so if you have a chance to see it, don’t even worry about the other shorts in Takut. This is a must see and showcasing it is probably the entire reason Takut was put together in the first place.” Video Junkie

“Not perfect, but a good and almost poetic collection of short films. I liked it. A lot.  Fred Anderson Ex-Ninja

IMDb

WH

Killers - in Japanese: キラーズ, “Kirazu” – is a 2014 Japanese-Indonesian psychological thriller film directed by Indonesian director duo The Mo Brothers (Macabre) and starring Kazuki Kitamura, Oka Antara, Rin Takanashi and Luna Maya. This film marks the first collaboration on a film in the thriller genre between Japan and Indonesia. The story was written by Takuji Ushiyama with Timo Tjahjanto of The Mo Brothers.

There are a few differences between the Indonesian theatrical version and the Japanese and International theatrical version. The Indonesian version has been edited, with scenes containing  violence and nudity being removed or softened.

Plot teaser:

In Tokyo, a serial killer is murdering women and posting his violent crimes on-line. In Jakarta, a rogue vigilante uploads his murdering spree for the world to see. A psychotic game of cat and mouse ensues as the two men battle for notoriety. Soon it becomes clear that it’s only a matter of time until the two killers square off face to face…

Buy Killers on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“Only the Mo Brother’s second feature film together, Killers is a riveting powerhouse of a film, exploring the darkest recesses of the human mind with two fantastic lead performances. This really is beautiful understated horror cinema at its most watchable.” Cinehouse

“One of the best movies that we’ve seen in 2014, Killers is a harsh, nasty little look at people, and what drives them to kill. If you’re a fan of violent thrillers like I Saw the Devil, then this movie should suit you perfectly.” The Horror Club

“Overall, though, something about Killers rings hollow. In its ambitious attempt to tell two parallel stories which ultimately converge, it feels a little long-winded and overblown for my liking, hinging on some plot contrivances and lapses into arch melodrama which I feel somewhat undermine earlier efforts to craft a sophisticated narrative.” Brutal as Hell 

Wikipedia | IMDb

Kampung Zombie – “Zombie Village” – is a 2015 Indonesian horror movie directed by Billy Christian (Hi5teria; Tuyul: Part 1) for Movie 8 productions, a subsidiary of Maxima Pictures. The film stars Ahmad Dhani, El Jalaluddin Rumi, Kia Poetri, Ali Mensan, Axel Matthew Thomas and Luthya Sury.

Kampung Zombie is due to be released on 19 March 2015.

The living dead are brought back to life after a village is consumed by contaminated volcanic ash. Four young travellers unwittingly find themselves stranded in a forest of zombies and must fight for their lives…

Not yet on IMDb

Wewe is a 2015 Indonesian horror film directed by Rizal Montovani (The Uninvited; The Chanting 2; Comatose). It stars Sebuah Rumah and Sebuah Misteri.

The film is due for release on April 16, 2015. More details to follow…

Thanks to Twitch Film for initial info.

Badoet is a 2015 Indonesian horror film directed by Awi Suryadi and produced by Haresh Kemlani and Daniel Topan for DT Films. It stars Daniel Topan, Ratu Felisha, Christoffer Nelwan, Marcel Chandrawinata, Aurelie Moeremans, Tiara Westlake, Ronny P. Tjandra.

The film is due to be released in Indonesia in September. At the time of writing, it does not yet appear on IMDb.com. Meanwhile, the following plot teaser has been translated by Horrorpedia.com

Plot teaser:

In an apartment block on the outskirts of Jakarta, three children commit suicide separately . A group of young students decide to investigate and uncover dozens of papers containing a mysterious clown picture in each of the rooms where the three children died. When an eight-year-old boy named Vino begins drawing the same figure, it seems obvious that he is the next target of the sinister clown…

Indonesian films on Horrorpedia: The Forbidden Door | Kampung Zombie | Killers | Macabre (2009) | Mystics in Bali | Satan’s Slave (1980) | Takut: Faces of Fear | Wewe

Danur: I Can See Ghosts is a 2017 Indonesian horror film directed by Awi Suryadi (Badoet). It stars Prilly Latuconsina.

Little Risa is lonely. Her father is working in a foreign country and her mother is kept busy between taking care of her sick grandmother in the hospital and her job as a public servant.

So, Little Risa is spending her school holiday mostly alone in her grandmother’s big house. When her mother misses her eighth birthday, Little Risa wishes for a friend. As soon as she blows the candle, she hears a little boy singing…

That night, Little Risa meets three little Dutch boys playing hide-and-seek in her grandmother’s closet. They introduce themselves as Peter, William and Janshen. Her wish for a friend has been granted threefold. She doesn’t care that her mother can’t seem to see her new friends, their friendship is real to her.

Until one night her mother comes home with a paranormal and he opens her inner eye… Little Risa finally sees her friends in their true form.

The film is scheduled to be released in Indonesia on 30 March 2017.

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Source: Screen Anarchy

Ruqyah: The Exorcism is a 2017 Indonesian supernatural horror film directed by Jose Poernomo (JailanGkung; Tarot; The Uninvited; et al). The MD Pictures-Pichouse Films production stars Evan Sanders and Celine Evangelista

Mahisa (Evan Sanders) wants to help a film artist named Asha (Celine Evangelista) who confesses to feeling harassed by spirits. At first, Mahisa does not believe Asha, but too many strange events occur, making Mahisa sure that Asha was possessed by supernatural beings.

A famous ustad (priest) tries to perform ruqyah (exorcism) to cleanse Asha’s soul. But it turns out what pervades Asha is not easily released and starts attacking Mahisa too. Furthermore, it turns out pervades Asha is destined to be a “charmer” to be liked by many people, thus making Mahisa also interested in Asha who already has a partner…

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Kembang Kantil  – “Kantil Flower” is a 2018 Indonesian supernatural horror film written and directed by Ubay Fox. The MD Pictures/Dee Company production stars Irish Bella, Nafa Urbach and Sarwendah.

Alisa (Irish Bella) visits the home of her older brother Anton (Fandika Riyandi) and his wife Santi (Nafa Urbach). She meets Tania (Richelle Georgette Skonicki) their foster child, who is already considered as one of their own children. However, Alisa is immediately aware of Tania’s mysterious attitude.

Having caught Tania eating a kantil flower in her room, Alisa begins to experience magical terror and a mysterious man figure, Toro (Dorman Borisman), appears and warns her to stay away. Ever more curious, Alisa begins to research Tania’s origins at the orphanage from where she came. Novi (Sarwendah), the orphanage owner, reveals that Tania has a dark past…

Kembang Kantil is released in Indonesia on 19th April 2018.

Main cast:

• Irish Bella … Alisa
• Nafa Urbach … Santi
• Sarwendah … Novi
• Richelle Georgette Skornicki … Tania
• Kevin Kambey
• Fadika Royandi
• Dorman Borisman … Toro

NB. At the time of posting, this film is not yet on IMDb

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Danur 2: Maddah is a 2018 Indonesian supernatural horror film directed by Awi Suryadi (Badoet; Sumpah pocong di sekolah) from a screenplay by Lele Laila, based on a novel by Risa Saraswati. It is a sequel to Danur: I Can See Ghosts (2017) and stars Prilly Latuconsina, Sandrinna Michelle, and Shawn Adrian Khulafa.

Risa (Prilly Latuconsina) is a teenager who has three ghost friends named Peter (Gamaharitz), William (Alexander Bain) and Jhansen (Kevin Bzezovski). She lives with her sister Riri (Sandrina Michelle), who is becoming embarrassed by Risa’s ability to see ghosts…

Cast and characters:

• Prilly Latuconsina … Risa
• Sandrinna Michelle … Riri
• Shawn Adrian Khulafa … Angki
• Sophia Latjuba … Tina
• Bucek … Ahmad
• Gamaharitz … Peter
• Kevin Bzezovski … Janshen
• Alexander Bain … William
• Matt White … Hendrick
• Justin Rossi … Hans

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Gasing Tengkorak – English translation: “Skull Top” – is a 2017 Indonesian supernatural horror film directed by Jose Poernomo. The Dee Company production stars Nikita Willy, Rendy Khrisna, Voke Victoria and Farahdiba Ferreira.

Veronica (Nikita Willy), is a top singing diva. However, during a concert, she suddenly falls unconscious. Michael, her manager, arranges for her to recuperate in a beautiful luxurious villa, far from everywhere.

Veronica asks to be left alone. Initially staying in the villa is a pleasure for. But gradually, the occult disturbances begin to haunt Veronica, in the form of a skull game…

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Rasuk – translation: “Beam” – is a 2018 Indonesian supernatural horror feature film directed by Ubay Fox from a story by author Risa Saraswati (Danur). The Dheeraj Kalwani  production for Dee Company stars Shandy Aulia, Miller Khan and Denira Wiraguna.

Langgir Janaka (Shandy Aulia) cannot understood the dispute with her mother that never seems to end. Her mother continues to blame herself for her father’s traffic accident.

Even when her mother remarries, and lives happily with her new husband and has a baby boy, Bakula, they are still hostile. This unhappiness makes Langgir always feel jealous of the lives of her three best friends, Sekar, Fransisca and Lintang, whom she considers far more perfect. All this accumulates into hatred in Langgir’s heart.

Langgir confides in Abimanyu (Miller Khan), a handsome young man whom she is falling for, despite his indifference

The friends go for a vacation to secluded forest cabin in Karma Rinjani. However, Langgir becomes angry when Abhimanyu suddenly arrives at the invitation of Inggrid, who has already become his lover. Meanwhile, dark and sinister events begin to take over their lives…

Rasuk will be released in Indonesia by MD Pictures on 28 June 2018.

Main cast:

• Shandy Aulia
• Miller Khan
• Denira Wiraguna
• Gabriella Desta
• Josephine Firmstone
• Baron Hermanto
• Maya Kusuma

Trivia:

This film should not be confused with the 2011 Malaysian comedy horror movie of the same name.

Rasuk is not currently listed on IMDb.

‘The next terror in The Doll series’

Sabrina is a 2018 Indonesian supernatural horror film produced and directed by Rocky Soraya (Mata Batin; producer of Tarot; Rumah Gurita) from a screenplay by Riheam Junianti and Fajar Umbara, based on Soraya’s storyline.

An offshoot of the same producer-director’s The Doll franchise, the Hitmaker Studios production stars Luna Maya, Christian Sugiono, Sara Wijayanto and Jeremy Thomas.

Maira lives happily with Aiden, a doll maker and toy company owner. But Vanya, their adopted daughter and Aiden’s niece, is still dealing with the loss of her birth mother. After Vanya plays Charlie’s Pencil to summon her late mother, strange things begin to happen. Maira is terrorised by the Sabrina doll. What is happening with the doll and what does it want?

Sabrina is released in Indonesia on 12 July 2018.

‘Believing is seeing’

Mata Batin [“Inner Eyes”] – aka The 3rd Eye – is a 2017 Indonesian supernatural horror feature film directed by Rocky Soraya (Sabrina; producer of Tarot; Rumah Gurita) from a screenplay by Riheam Junianti and Fajar Umbara, based on Soraya’s storyline. The Hitmaker Studios production stars Jessica Mila, Denny Sumargo and Citra Prima.

Alia is forced to return to Jakarta after her parents die because she had to take care of Abel, her sister. They move into their childhood home but Abel does not like the house because she thinks there is a disturbing figure. However, Alia does not believe her sister. Until finally Abel says that Alia must open her inner eyes to be able to see what she saw…

Mata Batin was released in Indonesia on 30 November 2017.

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The Doll is a 2016 Indonesian supernatural horror film directed by Rocky Soraya (Sabrina; Mata Batin) from a screenplay by Riheam Junianti, based on Rocky Soraya’s storyline.

The Hitmaker Studios production stars Shandy Aulia (Rasuk), Denny Sumargo, Sara Wijayanto and Vitta Mariana Barrazza.

A sequel, The Doll 2, followed in 2017. Meanwhile, Sabrina (2018) is an offshoot movie also featuring a possessed doll.

Anya and Daniel have just moved to their new house in Bandung. Daniel brings home a doll from his workplace. Anya, who is a dollmaker, happily welcomes the gift into their house. However, they discover that the doll belonged to a little girl named Uci, who died when she and her family were brutally murdered in a robbery.

Strange things begin to happen, like the doll mysteriously moving where it was placed, the door bell ringing by itself, and a little girl’s voice is heard late at night…

Trivia:

This movie should not be confused with the 2017 American film of the same name.

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Sabrina – Indonesia, 2018

Dolly Dearest – USA, 1991